Basic Pursuits

First, let me tell you what I think about exercise. I love it and work hard to keep it enjoyable. I think that it makes me feel better. I think that it makes others feel better. I've asked. Once I polled nearly 50 exercisers and asked them why they exercised. Well over nine out of 10 said that it made them feel better.

I also think that exercise has yet undefined effects on how the body operates. All systems just seem to function better when I'm exercising regularly. But I don't know this for a fact. It just feels that way to me and to others.

Here's what I know exercise can't do. It can't control your weight. Weight control is a function of the calories that you consume. Many people start exercising and don't lose weight. Here's what happens: exercise makes them hungrier and they eat more. They eat enough to compensate for what the exercise burns.

And exercise doesn't speed up your metabolism so that you are in the constant fat-burning state. This from Does Exercise Really Keep Us Healthy? in the New York Times:

Jack Wilmore, an exercise physiologist at Texas A & M University, calculated that the average amount of muscle that men gained after a serious 12-week weight-lifting program was 2 kilograms, or 4.4 pounds. That added muscle would increase the metabolic rate by only 24 calories a day.

I always say that people easily out-eat the most vigorous exercise programs. The Times article quotes Steven Blair, an exercise researcher at the University of South Carolina. He says it much better,

...it’s much easier to eat 1,000 calories than to burn off 1,000 calories with exercise. .. he relates, “An old football coach used to say, ‘I have all my assistants running five miles a day, but they eat 10 miles a day.”

Does Exercise Really Make Us Healthier?

Photo by Richard